


Navigate the Dangerous Halls

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, death mention, dyspraxic Jeremy Heere, negative self perception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: The first step to survival is avoiding head on collisions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another dyspraxic!Jeremy story, because why not? The headcanon seems to work.
> 
>  
> 
> Edit: The first chapter is the actual fic, structured in a specific way, with a clear literary goal or whatever. Chapter two is a self-indulgent bonus Jeremy/Michael ficlet, which is thematically related, but like I said, self-indulgent.

**Monday Morning Game One: Hallway Frogger**

It goes like this: Weave in. Weave out. So many people. Don't look at them. Just survive. Are they close? Are they far? Jeremy’s never been able to figure this out, but he's pretty sure they’re all closer than they should be, and hurtling towards _him_ specifically. He makes it to his locker somehow. Level complete. 

**Monday Afternoon Game Two: The Ever Shifting Science Classroom**

Bio is on the third floor in room 301. However, the numbers are not written on the rooms on the third floor. They are written on the rooms on every other floor, just not the third. In all fairness, the third floor is really old, and it's only for science. 

There are two staircases that lead up to the third floor. Today Jeremy can not go up his usual staircase, because there's some sort of fight going down on it. He takes the other staircase instead, and it's a disaster, because he doesn't know how to get to his classroom coming from this direction. Furthermore, he can't tell anybody that, because he's been going to this school for two years, and taking this class for two weeks. Also, other than Michael, he can't tell anybody anything, because the moment he opens his mouth (even about neutral things that aren't his deepest, darkest secrets), he makes a fool of himself. 

So he paces. He tries to breathe right, and to peer into the windows of the various classrooms to see which one is his. Jenna Rolan is in one of them, because of course she freaking is, and she points out his face in the window to some of the other girls around her. Eventually he gives up, walks back down the stairs, and returns up the correct stairs, which have been vacated. His palms are sweating, and his heart is racing, but he gets to the classroom and opens the door as fast as he can, just as the bell goes off. 

It's the wrong goddamn classroom. Jeremy dies. Game over. He's dead. He can either pay two metaphorical dollars to the equally metaphorical AppStore in his brain to get an extra life, or he can go to the school nurse and spend the rest of the day regenerating. 

He opts for the second option, because he's broke. 

**Monday Afternoon Game Three: Parking Lot Labyrinth**

This version of labyrinth doesn't have David Bowie in tight pants, Jim Henson creatures, or a plot. It's too low budget for any of that. It's literally just a parking lot, which Jeremy circles, as if Michael doesn't park in the same place nearly every day. This time, Jeremy manages to find the car with only about five minutes of extraneous walking. Michael doesn't joke about how he made a wrong turn at Antarctica, or got lost in an alternate reality. Coming from Michael, Jeremy doesn't mind those kinds of comments anyway. Parking Lot Labyrinth is low stakes, as far as games go. 

**Tuesday Morning Game One: Hallway Frogger II - Goranski’s Revenge**

Weave in. Weave out. So many people. Don't look at them. Just survive.

Never mind.

Jeremy steps too close to some girl, and she yells at him to stop breathing down her neck, because he is a _pervert_ , which isn't _exactly_ untrue, given his Internet search history, but it doesn't extend to real people, and it's not like Jeremy would so much purposely walk too close to a girl who didn't want him to walk too close to her. 

Game over.

Jeremy backs up, and collides with another girl. 

Game freaking over. Abort mission.   
Jeremy sputters out an apology and moves to the side. 

He hits Rich in the face with his elbow. 

Game. Over. Like for real this time. _Please_

Rich screams at him, and pushes his face against the locker.

Jeremy dies.

He attends math class, but in spirit only. Ghost Jeremy chews on the edge of his pencil until it's drooly and there's an actual chunk missing, which would make him a poltergeist technically, since those are the kinds of ghosts that can affect physical objects. At least he thinks that would make him a poltergeist. He’ll have to ask Michael later. It's a random fact, and it's a long established rule that the randomer the fact, the more likely Michael is to know it.

Jeremy doesn't worry about the bruise forming on his face. He’s freakishly accident prone. Nobody else will wonder either. At least being a chronic dumbass makes for a good cover story. 

**Tuesday Morning Game Two: Textbook Tetris**

Bang. Crash. Everything falls out of Jeremy’s locker. He starts again at level one. His history book is missing and will stay missing forever. 

**Tuesday Afternoon Game Three: Hallway Frogger IX - Two Player Edition**

By last period, Jeremy has collided with way too many people and inanimate objects for one day, plus he's spilled his lunch tray. Most days aren't this bad, but the bad ones tend to come in strings, in which one disaster begets another, and everything just snowballs from there. Bad Mondays mean bad Tuesdays, and bad Tuesdays mean that the week is a write off. 

So Jeremy gets out of his class, and people are doing the thing where they are all rushing around, and it's impossible to tell their approximate distance from Jeremy, and he tries to map out a clear path to his locker, but he can't. He takes a step, and his body tightens. He takes another, and it tightens some more. He takes a third, and he can't make himself take another. 

Then Michael is there, placing a hand between his shoulder blades. 

“Hey, this way, dude,” he says, steering in an effortless way, where it doesn't feel like he's steering, and Jeremy just lets him, because he trusts him to know what's up, even if he doesn't understand why Jeremy’s like this any more than Jeremy himself does. On the way, Michael starts telling Jeremy everything there is to know about some indie band he discovered on MySpace, and Jeremy can almost listen to him, because he's not concentrating on where to go anymore. 

“Tough day?” Michael asks. 

“L-like objectively or subjectively?” 

“Whatever you feel like, man. My day was objectively hella boring, but subjectively great, ‘cause new music, like I was saying.” 

“Mine sucked. But objectively that's because I'm a fuck up.” 

“Hey!” Michael says, a bit too loudly. That's a side effect of always having his headphones on, or maybe it's just a Michael thing. Either way, the volume of his voice turns more than a few heads. 

“Well, it’s true!” 

“No way.” Michael manages to be quieter this time. “Back to my house to play video games?” 

“Totally.” 

Jeremy relaxes a little. He likes the kinds of games you can play on a screen, because he can sometimes beat those.


	2. Chapter 2

It doesn't take a lot of times bursting into tears in the middle of the hallway for no apparent reason to get labeled as the kid who bursts into tears in the hallway for no apparent reason. Once is enough. Jeremy has already had his one time, back at the beginning of freshman year, and he can't let it happen again. 

He's frozen, dead in the the center of the hallway, and has been for a while now. He can't make himself move forward or backwards, but he manages to step from one side to another whenever anybody gets too close, which is everybody, always, all the time, especially now. He's sure that if anybody touches him he’ll slither out of his skin, like the garden slugs that his grandmother used to pour salt on. 

(“They're pests,” she'd say, as the things writhed and turned themselves inside out, as if that excused it.)

People notice, because of course they do, and while Jeremy isn't too far gone to notice them noticing, he's detached from it. 

The crowd starts to thin out, as more and more people leave the building. Jeremy doesn't have to weave and dodge so much now. He wishes he wasn't always trying to avoid brushing up against other people, and other people would try to avoid brushing up against him, but then, it's not such a big freaking deal for other people. 

Somehow Jeremy manages to maneuver himself over towards some lockers, take out his phone, and text Michael one word: 

**Stuck**

And that's it. It's all he has. His phone buzzes a few times, but Jeremy’s eyes are closed and he's trying to breathe. 

There's a shift in the air when Michael finds him. Jeremy’s stomach clenches in anticipation of all that closeness he's been dreading, but Michael doesn't touch him, just sits down next to him. Jeremy opens his eyes, and turns his head towards Michael, his cheek pressed against the cool metal of somebody else’s locker. 

“Hi,” Michael mouths to him. He smiles, but then he looks around, lips pursed.

“The last time we sat on the floor Chloe Valentine said we were trying to see up her skirt,” Jeremy answers, in a burst of coherence which is shocking, even to him. 

“I _did_ see up her skirt, no trying involved. Maybe she, you know, shouldn't step on people who are weirdly sitting on the gross-ass cafeteria floor with no good explanation. Yeah. That'd be good.” 

Jeremy draws his knees up to his chest. He’s having a ‘thing’, as Michael would describe it (and probably will describe it later, when he's trying to wave off Jeremy’s thanks and apologies).

“Awww, Jer…” Michael’s hand hovers, but Jeremy shifts away, not a lot, but enough to make Michael understand. “Okay,” Michael says. “So, I'm on guard. You can sit there or whatever, I'll fend off unwanted shoes and underpants, and we’ll leave when you’re ready.” 

Jeremy manages a nod. 

It's a while before his body loosens, and he feels like he can open his eyes. When he does, Michael has his headphones on. He's got his phone out, and he's playing Plants VS Zombies. 

“Can we go?” Jeremy asks. 

“Of course, dude. Come on.” 

“You wanna finish your song first?” 

Michael flops back against the locker, grinning. “You know me too well.” 

Jeremy does know Michael well. He knows that Michael considers it practically a crime to stop a song before it’s finished, and he also knows that if Michael is worried about him, he’ll do literally anything to try to help. 

The song ends. Michael slides off his headphones so that they perch on their normal place around his neck. His smile is more genuine now. 

“Thing over?” he asks.

Jeremy nods. 

“Cool. Let's go for slushees. Looks like you could use some frozen sugar water. Hell, I could use some frozen sugar water.” 

“Everybody could use some frozen sugar water.” 

“Exactly!”

**Author's Note:**

> See also: Stumbling Through 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/12281436
> 
> (As mentioned in the other story, I'm also dyspraxic, but I'm not flat out projecting, because I'm a very different person than Jeremy Heere. So I get the thing where I can't tell how close or far people are from me in crowds, but my thoughts, perceptions, and ways of coping with it are different than Jeremy's would be, because he's not me. I kind of see it as a situation where it's easier to write a vivid description of a character eating a tomato if you've eaten a tomato at some point in your life, even if you love tomatoes and the character finds the very mention of them offensive, and tomatoes remind you of your mother's garden, but tomatoes remind the character of a birthday party that they attended in seventh grade where everybody was inexplicably dressed like characters from Veggie Tales. ANYWAY I sure do love it when I write fic and people comment on it.)


End file.
